5.6 Million Crashes!? Every Body Shop in America Should Be Creating a New Class of Billionaires

I'll accept autonomous cars if the irresponsible drivers are the first occupants and owners.

Recent News

I was reading U.S. motor-vehicle crash statistics on New Year’s Day—because that’s the kind of three-ring monkey-yammering festival of excitement my life has become—when I was floored by two facts. First, I had misplaced my drink, only to find it being consumed by my 18-pound cat, Teddy Roosevelt. Second, U.S. drivers crash approximately 5.6 million times per year. Given our population of 322 million, that means 1.7 percent of our number apparently require further eye-hand coordination or English-reading skills or cautionary tales about dwelling in O’Cleary’s until last call, which is another way to lose your drink. Of course, I’ve known folks who crash multiple times per year—the Busch brothers, for instance, or any NFL player at all—which means that statistically fewer of us are actually devoted to driving 200 feet backward through a fruit stand on Boca Vista Boulevard. But, I mean, seriously folks, if 5.6 million of us crashed, say, our Easy Climber stair lifts, there’d be God’s own Congressional hearing chaired by Clarence Ditlow and three Barbary apes.

What’s more, the crashes were merely those reported to police, whereas most aren’t. One estimate, in fact, suggests we may be crashing 16 million times per year, and possibly more if Justin Bieber rents another Lamborghini. Am I wrong, here, or should every body shop in America be creating a new class of billionaires? I stupidly studied drafting in high school, when I should have studied the 1001 miracle uses of Bondo, primer, and naked-lady calendars.

Anyway, all of this held me in its thrall, as they say, because I’ve met plenty of ­people who have never crashed a car—ever. My grandmother, for instance, and several of the early Popes. Also, me. That’s right. I’ve never crashed a car on public roads. On racetracks, sure. Also on private property, where, for instance, while practicing 180s in the snow, I beelined my father’s Toyota Corolla headfirst into a cement flower box in a parking lot at Ohio State University. Then, while closing our garage door, I allowed my 1970 Mustang Boss 302 to roll down our steep driveway—with me watching raptly at a distance of 20 feet or so—and into my brother-in-law’s VW Karmann Ghia. We never fixed the Corolla, and my sister divorced Ghia Boy, so I can tell you that neither mishap relieved me of a dime, which, of course, is a crime in the eyes of the cosmos, so I will set aside time tomorrow to feel bad about it.

Phillips, shown here practicing defensive driving.

Moreover, I’ve driven a lot—40,000 miles per year, I once calculated, for 47 years. I wore out our family cars, even as my mother gave me repeated finger-wagging admonitions to “bundle your errands.” Except, back then, I had no errands and no responsibilities except clinging vise-like to my father’s Sunoco credit card.

Anyway, it’s good not to be a crasher. For one thing, I’ve witnessed at least six C/D staffers who, after forcing physics into a standoff, have been shown the door faster than a wet dog, with someone boss-like pushing sharply from behind and shouting, “I hear there’s an opening for a night manager at Old Country Buffet,” followed by a slam that fractures the doorjamb. In fact, we had a kindly tech editor who crashed an Acura NSX, a Suzuki Swift GT, then a Lamborghini Diablo. After that final veil of tears, he told me his flight back from Italy “might have lasted 409 hours” and that he looked so broken-spirited upon landing in Detroit that the customs agent simply waved him through.

It helps that I’ve never owned a cellphone. Well, my wife bought me one of those $25 Nokia flippy-uppy jobs, but the only thing I ever used it for was to pound a stapler back into shape. That’s lucky for me, because cellphones are now estimated to cause 26 percent of all crashes, which suggests we ought to toss the things into every vehicle owned by ISIS.

But let’s get back to crash statistics, which are being used more and more often to rationalize autonomous cars, because those cars don’t drive drunk or engage in fits of mumbling road rage or try to out-lick a melting Dove Bar while speeding through construction zones. We—well, some of us—are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed, one of the 88 books that “shaped America,” says our Library of Congress. I hope Nader is gratified to have witnessed mandated airbags, ABS, ­stability control, and, perhaps soon, laser-guided deer whistles. If there’s an outstanding example of Big Government intervening in the marketplace to the betterment of us all, those safety devices surely make the case.

So here’s my own advancement for 2016: I’ll accept autonomous cars—as if I have a choice—as long as the 5.6 million drivers who are so blasé about crashing are the first occupants and owners. Let them enjoy cars that don’t so much go putt-putt as Google-Google. They are, in my mind, one-quarter of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the one named “Ed.” We need to keep an eye on them.